there is no new, only renewal:
the space between brain and mind

the harder shell a skulking humanizing container,
the neuronic heart cells,
brain stem and heart bloodstream
scented/stented,
deny the newness of no new claim

the tower of ourselves built on the babble
of old images and read readings,
songs in seconds recognized by just the first two notes,
the point is this when do you become a grownup,
when new is but renewal, with a hint, a pinch,
of a new insight maybe recognized

now, how will you know me new when your eyes
search the iron bank cellar, where,
by voice deep, by fuzzy photographs, what tissues will connect
when the new sight knows me from too many old poems/songs?

!when the babies gather round for lifting up, sky scratching,
when the old man grand father, carries three upon his back,
a nonpareil horsey ride,
when the doorbell rings
I’m older than now, you’ll say,
read your wild mercury back pages,
taking the grays of our mutually curly
Medusa locks as a renewal gift offering
that will someday
match mine!

halo, halo
flooded by musky greens
that wipe out the bitterness
to your taste
hands tight on my waste
and lifting me
to sit on a shredded pillow
the window open
the walls damp
the chill once again comforts me
embracing an icy touch
you cut my hair
a head of bleach falls to the floor
my black roots remain
fragile breaths come from the trees
awakening once more
creeping their branches into the room
creeping under my tunic
the sky clears and I am soft
the pillow empties of its feathers
removing the inside
releasing the weight

As a I girl, I had
a small music box,
which I played over and over.
I wound it up,
and the ballerina inside
would spin and spin,
her dance and the song
a simple embrace of youth.

There are versions of myself
that I have long since forgotten,
long since forsaken.
The rhythm will find you,
make you into someone new.
But this tune brings me back,
always,
to the little girl
who spent hours watching ballerinas dance.

The Spring
detests the girl
with the ivory complexion,
dollops of rosy flesh
sunk against her face
like discarded peach pits
(and discarded
is she.
forgotten
is she).

Mother Nature's
Alabaster *******,
they've dubbed her.

And tried Mother Nature
to preach tranquillity
to her daughter,
a reminder to always keep
still
amidst any tempest
****** into her path.  

But mother,
I am the tempest.

Come tomorrow morning,
the spring snow
will have melted,
but frigid I shall remain.

Dissonant and
storm-wrenched
I shall remain.

All the world begins to thaw
as I loll about in
the tundra of this loneliness.

When dawn arrives,
I will draw the curtains
before the rising sun
shoots me that beam
of apocalyptic grin.

The world is not ending,
you will tell me
(but mine is).

I have always existed
separately
from the rest,
you see.

The bright evenings and the even brighter mornings.

The unmistakably poignant scent of freshly-cut grass.

Marmalade sunsets that descend effortlessly into their celestial counterparts.

Flowers blossoming to profound vibrancy.

I wish I could tell the flowers
it is only a matter of time
before some wandering child
will rip apart their petals
in a ruthless game of
“He Loves Me
He Loves Me Not.”

(Child,
I Know this game
all too well—
the perils of picking
an even number
of petals).

And it is only a matter of time
before autumn dolls out
its wiltings.

I am also well accustomed
to the art of wilting,
you know.

The only difference
between me
and the sunflowers
is that the spring
belongs to them.

It is the epoch
of renewal,
of second chances
in spite of their inevitable
witherings,
both past and future.

But the present--
the spring--
it will always belong to them.

I know not
how it feels
to heal alongside
the sunflowers.

I know not
what it means
to shed the prospect of
death
even if it is only
temporary.

My heart is caught
in an impenetrable limbo.

Tell me
Mother Nature,
how do I move on?

For letting go
seems a foreign enigma
to me.

So,
really,
what else am I to do
but draw the curtains
each sunrise?

As I am left to weather
the deluge
while all the world blooms,
as I am left to
pour,
I desperately
await the
rain.

For it is only
in the rain
that I shall return home.

I can hardly wait
to rise anew from ashes.
Set alight by love.

I am being made new.
The egg, cracked in half.
Taped together with scotch tape and super glue.
The yolk entirely devoid of its once-consistant home.

This is emptiness.
This is being renewed.
This is what it is to feel and not feel.
To be and not be.

The hand dips me.
Reaches for me.
Dunks me in a solvent of cement and tissue paper.

I am rock.
I am eggshell.
I am tissue paper.
I am two parts vulnerable,
one part entirely indestructible.

I weigh 1000 tons.

I would sink in a river.

I miss the yolk that once inhabited me.
Golden yellow:
So much promise. So much desire.

A gray mallet cracks me open.
It ecavates me.

I miss my terrible weight.

A hot glue gun binds me back together.
I am neither egg nor rock nor air nor yolk.
I am all and none at all.
I am egg soup.
Egg solid.
Egg squared and solidified.
Egg smashed and built again.
        ...The limitless persistance of life.

Today I leave nothing to the imagination
In a historically accurate setting.
I, your narrator to navigate through
Corridors of a physical mindscape
(no escape)
Decorated with impressions and caricatures.
Follow my voice,
I invite and incite all Memories:
A curation of characters and sentimentalities.
Taxidermy preserved to its last breath.
Exhibitionist curiosity.
I must be an architect
to reconstruct a desolated house.  
"Welcome home," to my
Recollection residence.
Archaeological labor too, to unearth
Buried civilities and forgotten feuds.

To stand in the ashes of
A prison of twelve winters
On summits is a struggle
To surmount shades and shadows.
Pouncing, pulse,
I suture each slash with sleep.
But here you are,
pilgrim of an echo,
breathing life,
you have struck a chord
—And a dissonance that
thrusts me into the future—
that rings through my forlorn past.
This time, in that foreign country,
a new page slowly, slowly turns.